JDV gains Saudi King's support for Mindanao peace process

Also in today’s news but from a Philippine newspaper, the Speaker of the Philippine House of Representatives (the Philippines’ lower house of Congress), Jose de Venecia visited Saudi Arabia and discussed the peace process in Mindanao and global inter-faith dialogue with the new Saudi monarch, King Abdullah bin Abdel Aziz al-Saud.

Obviously, the news item is a PR thing because it talked about de Venecia winning “endorsement for both in an unprecedented one-hour dialogue” with the Saudi king. They have started to count their chicks when the eggs have not yet hatched. This also reminded of an old Pakistani friend in Riyadh who, on several instances, intimated to me how de Venecia fooled them into investing in a failed oil exploration project many, many years ago. I wondered then if this was true. I wondered until now whether this is true. But, knowing the polished politics of de Venecia, I can come up with my theories. I wonder if Mahmood Tariq and his colleagues were able to catch on de Venecia while he was in Riyadh. Has the ghosts of de Venecia's storied past caught up on him?